Just heard an interview on NPR's Morning Edition with Neil Gaiman today, talking about the new Sandman book. Prompted my wife and I bothto plan to dig out the complete series and reread it, as well as buy the new series. And Miracle Man comes out in January, reprinting the original series and picking up with new issues where it left off.

Anyone in Columbus on the 9th can buy all of my Sandman's for $1 each pretty much, except for #8 & a couple others. NIX Comics is renting a warehouse space behind What The Rock & is letting vendors set up for comics, records, & other similar fun crap.

_________________The angry can be made happy again, but the dead can not be brought back to life. - Sun Tzu

I seem to recall there being some fans of Ben Templesmith and The Maxx here. Ben recently did art for the first 6 issues of Ten Grand. Have not read it, but word of mouth has been positive. Not too surprising considering how massive a roll Image has been on. He also launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for a graphic novel called The Squidder, which should be coming any time now.

IDW launched a remastered/rejiggered version of The Maxx called The Maxx: Maxximized. All the art has been rescanned and it has a new coloring job overseen by Sam Kieth himself. He's also doing some content tweaks, which are probably best read about in this interview with Kieth about the relaunch.

Also, I would be doing everyone a disservice if I didn't throw a mention out for the Humble Image Bundle. Pay what you want for the DRM-free digital editions of the first TPBs (yes, trades, not single first issues) of some of Image's best titles. If you pay more than the average price you get even more awesome stuff, including the first two volumes of Saga (which everyone should be reading). Current average price is $10.04, which is a fucking bargain. $20 gets you the first and latest volume of The Walking Dead in addition to everything else. The only titles I haven't read yet in that bundle are Morning Glories and Revival, so I can't speak to their quality personally, but everything else is top notch and among the best in comics right now.

And while I'm bumping the thread, I'll throw a recommendation behind another Image title (told you they've been on a roll) I think a lot of people here would really dig called Black Science. It's a new series from Rick Remender with Matteo Scalera on art and Dean White on colors that just wrapped up its first arc and is now on a three month hiatus. The gist: a scientist creates a device that can punch through dimensions. The device is sabotaged and the scientist, his team, and his family are dropped in the middle of a crazy world of tribal fish and frogmen that reside in ziggurats on top of giant turtles.

The first arc goes through a variety of locales full of weird monsters before ending on a cliffhanger that is going to bug the crap out of me while the book is on break. There's also a good deal of drama and tension between the group of stranded if you fancy that type of stuff, but the book never lets up on the pulpy monster sci-fi goodness. Image sells digital copies of the singles DRM-free on their webstore (all of the digital comics on their webstore are DRM-free), and comiXology has the first issue for only $1.

I've heard so much good stuff about Fear Agent, one of those things being that it's a bit similar to Black Science. I have it sitting in my backlog, and now that you've reminded me of it I think I'll make my way through it while Black Science is on hiatus.

Remender's become one of my favorite writers in comics, though I'm really only familiar with his Marvel work. Uncanny Avengers went "fuck everything" and is fantastic right now. Uncanny X-Force was the best run on an X-book since Whedon's on Astonishing, and Remender turned on god mode during The Dark Angel Saga. That is easily one of the absolute greatest X-Men stories ever told and might even be my personal favorite. His opening Dimension Z story for Captain America was very Black Science-ish with Cap being thrown into a bizarro sci-fi/monster world. It was a huge change for the character considering he took over for Brubaker. Now he's fighting some guy who controls minds with bubbles that come out of a tophat who's in league with an underground mystical Chinese supervillain. His Venom run was fantastic as well and was a whole different take on the character.

Didn't know Black Science was on hiatus. Fear Agent is like Black Science with less seriousness and a lot more comic relief. I'm honestly not that familiar with his superhero work, or superhero stuff in general. I liked Uncanny X-Force for the first 20 or so issues, then stopped reading that. I'll check out Uncanny Avengers if you think it's worth my time. But having never got into superhero comics at all outside of some Punisher and Wolverine in my youth, I always feel like I'm missing a lot of back story when getting into a new book.

There's a page at the end of the latest issue that mentions they're on a short break, coming back in July. Blame Vaughn and Staples for establishing a similar pattern with Saga, I guess :P.

I don't know why you stopped reading UXF, but if it was for lack of interest I'm not sure I would recommend finishing it. I really like the title from front to finish, but The Dark Angel Saga is the highest point of the run and the Otherworld arc that follows it is my least favorite of the run. I jumped right into UXF when I got back into comics, so I was missing about a decade's worth of back story, but I managed plenty of enjoyment out of it just fine. That said, it's probably not the best book to dive into without knowing much of anything about the X-Men.

UXF is kind of a tricky recommendation because a) I love it so much and want everyone to read it, and b) it doesn't so much incorporate past events as much as it does prior relationships. That said, at least knowing about Age of Apocalypse and what happened to Warren in the X-Force run immediately preceding UXF would help a lot (not to mention they're both good reads).

Knowing the histories between Betsy and Warren, Logan and Jean, the Braddock family, Logan and his son, Logan and Creed, etc aren't required, but the book is more rewarding if you're aware of the history of those relationships. I do think Remender does a good enough job of relaying the general emotional gist of those histories so that you're not left feeling like you completely missed something. The only ones that left me a bit confused related to Jamie Braddock (who I never really encountered in any of the books I used to read or have since read) and the Skinless Man, the latter of which was established in UXF afaik.

Uncanny Avengers builds off of UXF. It starts out as it's own thing, but Remender starts connecting UA to UXF with issue 6. Having read UXF isn't required to read UA, but it helps and makes UA a more fulfilling read.

If you want to check out Remender's super hero stuff, I would start with the Castaway in Dimension Z story that runs through the first 10 issues (first two TPBs) of his Captain America run. It's self contained and doesn't rely on any back story at all. Dimension Z itself will feel familiar coming from Black Science (and I'm assuming Fear Agent). I think you'll really like it. From there I'd move on to his run on Venom, which aside from a brief detour into the Spider-Island event is also self-contained and doesn't require back story. He also had a run on Punisher, but I haven't read it and haven't heard much about it aside from the Franken-Castle arc (which I guess is pretty good).

I really hope this isn't a complete piece of shit, even though it probably will be. Hellblazer ending and turning into whatever it is now (haven't checked it out tbh) was bad enough without a glossy, "edgy" network tv show shitting all over the source material.

That they got someone that looks like Constantine has me unreasonably excited for that show's prospects. I was naturally skeptical of how this would turn out, but that trailer shows a lot of promise. I hope it's great and it does well. It being on NBC almost definitely means we won't get that one Garth Ennis story, which is too bad but not at all surprising.

Oh, and is that Jeremy Davies I see? If he's in this as a regular cast member there's no way I won't be giving this a chance.

Don't know if there are any Doctor Who fans in here, but Humble Bundle is running another comics bundle that's all Doctor Who comics.

I sold one of my drawings a few years ago for over 1K and it funded the printing. Doing a special live podcast release party at one of the local comic book stores. My comic is the first in history to feature anime styled characters smoking weed!!! LOL

I had the first trade of Black Science but I let some kid borrow it and never got it back.

I don't read much but within the past few years I really like Orc Stain, Low, Stray Bullets and the old Savage Sword Of Conan comics from the late 70s.

My friends keep telling me how cool all these new DC and Marvel comics are but I kind of hate the fact that all anybody cares about is Batman and the Avengers and all that shit that was played out decades ago. Enough already.

I still have all my old comics from the 80s and 90s. Although I pulled out Supreme #1 the other day and threw it directly into the trash. Most of that Image stuff was such garbage. I like the late 80s Daredevil, early 80s Thor, etc.

_________________"5 feet away look up to a 9 footer with shoulders as wide as your dashboard and see if you care how progressives are telling you how to think." -Dong, on bigfoot and politics.